The diet of the nation’s children has long been a concern of the celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver and he has been in the news again recently as a result of this issue. You may have heard that the chef openly criticised the education secretary for the quality and the standards of school meals – the chef charged him with ‘eroding’ the quality of them.

What led to this criticism? Apparently, Oliver was bothered by the new state of affairs. Academy schools, it is said, are under no obligation to sign up to the food standards which were brought into place by the last government.
Oliver is seeking the support of pupils’ parents and wants them to ask Michael Gove (the education secretary) to stick to the previous arrangement. If this is not done, there is a concern that standards may drop again. The chef has been quoted as worrying that it is too much to ask a headteacher to become a professional caterer and that standards could be cut as headteachers have to balance the books and make numerous other decisions about the running of their schools. The standards which were introduced by the previous government were there to provide a minimum requirement.

The role of schools in terms of the nutrition of the nations’ children is increasingly important. With the increase in working parents, many primary and secondary school pupils have their meals at school and many children eat both breakfast and lunch at school.

Posted by Hayley on the 6th December 2011